Go Explore

Urban Park Rangers

These experts on New York City’s wildlife and natural areas have planned all sorts of outings for you. The Urban Park Rangers lead camping trips, hikes, canoeing lessons, scavenger hunts, and plenty of other outdoor activities for people of all ages.

Hiking Trails

Happy trails await you in a New York City park. Pick a trail based on preferred difficulty, distance, or scenery. Be sure to pack plenty of water and sunscreen, layer your clothing, and hit the road! Here are a few of the great trails in city parks.

Bronx

John Muir Nature Trail

Travel through three ecologically distinct forests on this 1.5 mile route, the only trail in Van Cortlandt Park to traverse the park from east to west. The trail will lead you through park’s Northeast Forest, home to red oak, sweetgum, and tulip trees, as well as a frog-filled marsh; the Croton Woods and its sugar maple and hickory trees, as well as the Old Croton Aqueduct; and the hilly Northwest Forest, home to stately tulip, oak, and hickory trees.

Kazimiroff Nature Trail

Leave the city far behind on the Kazimiroff Nature Trail, which provides self-guided long and short loop paths around 189-acre Hunter Island, leading visitors along the island’s wetland border, through its interior forest, and onto the shore of beautiful Orchard Beach.

Brooklyn

Midwood Trail

Step back in time with a walk through Brooklyn’s oldest remaining forest. The Midwood, home to some of Prospect Park’s largest trees, is a relic of Brooklyn’s history, and was preserved and incorporated into the park during its original construction. The thirty-minute hike loops from Prospect Park’s Audubon Center through a forest filled with birds and other animals.

Gerritsen Creek Nature Trail

Location: Marine Park
Enter behind the Salt Marsh Nature Center, located near the intersection of East 33rd Street and Avenue U.

The first half of this mile-long trail follows the shore of Gerritsen Beach, which empties into Jamaica Bay. From the trail’s boardwalk and viewing platforms you can observe the birdlife for which the park is famous, including the herons, egrets, ducks, and geese that frequent the marsh throughout the year. The trail’s second leg winds through a prairie of tall grass, where you can sometimes spot cottontail rabbits and ring-necked pheasants.

Manhattan

Nature Trail in Inwood Hill Park

Take a step back in time and imagine Manhattan as a forest grove of tulip trees, oaks, and maples. Inwood Hill Park’s marked scenic sites or historic highlights trail will lead you to the top of the hill, where the park’s oldest trees – two Cottonwoods planted before the park was established – still live.

Queens

Vanderbilt Motor Parkway

This pathway for cyclists and hikers meanders over parts of the former Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, which was originally built by William Vanderbilt in 1908 as the nation’s first roadway designed solely for automobiles. The path runs from Cunningham Park through Alley Pond Park, giving hikers and bikers a fascinating glimpse at the two parks’ history.

Staten Island

Red Trail at the Greenbelt

This easy-to-moderate four-mile long loop trail is in the heart of the Greenbelt, which is also home to six other picturesque hiking trails on which urban explorers can discover Staten Island’s vast preserves of natural spaces. The red trail crosses over Buck’s Hollow, Heyerdahl Hill, the northern edge of LaTourette golf course and the neighborhood of Lighthouse Hill. Want to make a full day of it? A pathway leads from the trail downhill to Historic Richmond Town, where you can walk through a preserved 18th century village.